


New Message

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A Monthly Rumbelling, F/M, Wrong number
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 07:06:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8134789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: It began as a series of messages on his answer machine that were definitely not for him. Gold had no idea what it would lead to... 
Based off the Monthly Rumbelling prompt "wrong number".





	

**New Message - A Monthly Rumbelling Fic**

**Rated:** T

**Prompt:** Wrong Number

**Summary:** It began as a series of messages on his answer machine that were definitely not for him. Gold had no idea what it would lead to... 

**Word Count:** 2514

**======**

**New Message**

_"You have three new messages. To listen to your messages, press one."_

Gold dutifully pressed one. 

_"First new message. Received yesterday at eight forty-three PM."_

Gold listened to the message. Although he did not receive messages on the pawn shop phone often, it was not entirely unheard of, and it was normally someone somewhere coming up with an inventive excuse for missing rent this month. Three messages in one night was most definitely unusual, though. Three different people with the same excuse? One person with three different excuses?

The message was not, however, a plea for rent extension or some other message related to his line of work. The voice on the other end of the phone was very Australian, very angry, and (for which Gold was somewhat grateful given the force of her ire) very definitely not addressing him.

_"Gaston, I don't know how many times I've told you to come and get your crap out of my apartment, but if it's still here tomorrow I'm throwing the whole lot of it in the trash! Including your signed AC/DC poster and all the beer you left in my fridge! If you think you can weasle your way back into my life because I'm currently custodian of half your junk, you've got another think coming!"_

The caller rang off, and Gold pondered at the message. She had probably misdialled in her frustration, and having tenants who seemed to take an inordinately long time to vacate premises after eviction, he could fully sympathise with her plight. He thought that she might have realised her mistake when she listened to his answerphone message, which quite clearly stated that the caller had reached Mr Gold, Pawnbroker and Antiquities Dealer, until he remembered that this was a new phone and he still hadn't worked out how to record the answerphone message on it. 

_"To listen to the message again, press one. To delete the message, press two. To save the message, press three. To return the call at your normal call rate, press star."_

For some reason currently unknown to him that would no doubt present itself in the future, Gold pressed three. He should have deleted it and ignored it, or he could have, had he had the slightest inclination, called the angry young woman back and informed her of her mistake. He got the impression that the latter might cause more harm than good, so he decided against making contact. All the same, he couldn't bring himself to delete the message.

_"Second new message. Received yesterday at nine eighteen PM."_

It was the same young woman, even angrier than before if that was possible. 

_"Seriously Gaston? Seriously? You kept her underwear? IN MY APARTMENT? AND TRIED TO PASS IT OFF AS MINE WHEN YOU KNOW QUITE WELL I'VE NEVER OWNED RED PANTIES AND I'VE GOT WIDER HIPS THAN THAT, AS YOU NEVER FAILED TO REMIND ME!"_

Gold winced. He would not like to be in Gaston's shoes, whoever he was. Having said that, though, Gold was quite sure that had he ever been unfaithful to a romantic partner, especially one he was cohabiting with, he would have enough sense not to try and pass off someone else's underwear as hers. 

_"Ooo,"_ said another female voice in the background of the call _. "La Perla!"_

_"Ruby, put those back, I'm going to burn them,"_ the angry Australian lady snapped at her friend in the background. Then she made a noise of frustration and hung up.

Gold saved that message as well, although if pressed he still could not think of a reason why. 

_"Third new message. Received yesterday at nine thirty-three PM."_

It was with a small smile that Gold realised he would be rather disappointed if this was not another message from the young woman breaking up with her boyfriend. He wondered what would happen when it was found out that the boyfriend in question had not actually received any of these messages. He really shouldn't be thinking about that; it wasn't any of his business, but having heard these messages, however in error they might have been, he suddenly had an interest in this woman's life. She'd inadvertently brought him into it, and now he wanted to know more. 

He was not disappointed, although the message was shorter than the others and not quite as vehement, but still incredibly cryptic as to its content.

_"I'm keeping the DVDs."_

Gold deleted that one, deciding it would probably be prudent not to think too much more in that direction. He tried to put the messages to the back of his mind, and think no more about them, but throughout the day he still found himself looking over at the phone, expecting it to ring any moment and for him to hear that very angry Australian voice again. He knew so little about her; he didn't even know her name. All he knew was that she'd had an acrimonious split from an ex named Gaston and she had a friend called Ruby, and he was worryingly curious about her. 

The phone did not ring again, and there were no new messages waiting for him the next morning. Gold deleted the two that he had saved the previous day in that moment of madness, and he resolved to think no more on the matter. The young woman had come into his life for a brief moment, but it wasn't as if he was ever going to meet her. She might be anywhere in the country, after all. 

X

It was the accent that threw him. Three months after the misdirected answerphone messages and Gold had almost put them out of his mind until the young brunette lady in the ridiculously high shoes had come into the shop. Indeed, he was only reminded of them when she had spoken to him and he had heard quite clearly her place of origin.

"Can I help you?" he asked. 

"I'm ok at the moment, just browsing," she said, and it was all Gold could do not to drop his cane, double take, or do some other wholly ridiculous thing to betray himself because her voice was exactly the same one as he had heard shouting down his phone all those weeks before. "I'm looking for a gift for a friend. She likes quirky, unique stuff, and everyone in the town told me that this was the best place to come." She paused. "I've not been here long, I'm still trying to get my bearings."

"Where are you staying?" Gold asked, trying not to sound rather choked. 

"I've just taken over the library," the young woman said. "I moved in last week."

Since Gold owned the library building and the apartment above it, he wondered why he hadn't come across her before, but then he realised that all the paperwork had been done via email and paid in advance, and since he'd never known the identity of his angry caller, there was nothing to link Belle French, librarian, currently standing in front of him, to the phone messages.

"You must be Miss French," he said. 

She nodded. "Belle." She paused. "Are you the same Mr Gold I pay rent to or do you have a brother?"

"No, that's me." He paused. "I hope you'll be happy here."

It was not the sort of sentiment that he would impart to anyone else in the shop who had recently moved to the area. He was not one for pleasantries or sentiment at all if he could help it, but knowing as he did a little of her history before her move, he felt that he ought to offer some kind of positivity. Belle smiled. 

"Thank you." She bent down to look in the glass display cabinet below the cash register, and Gold found himself crouching down and watching her through the other side as she browsed. Belle just giggled. 

"Anything take your fancy?" he asked. 

She pointed to an intricate china model of a seahorse. 

"That one," she said. "That's perfect for Ariel."

Gold unlocked the cabinet and took out the seahorse. "Ariel de la Mer?"

"Yes." Belle sounded surprised. "Do you know her?" 

"She's a regular browser."

"She was the one who convinced me to come here," Belle said. "A fresh start in a new place, you know? I..." She tailed off, perhaps sensing that she had already said too much to a man who was both her landlord and ostensibly a stranger, even if he did know the circumstances of her fresh start. He wanted to say something, in comfort or reassurance perhaps, but he didn't know what would be appropriate without giving himself away, so he distracted himself with the seahorse. On the whole he had always considered it a rather ugly thing, and so did most of his patrons if the length of time it had been in the display and the amount of dust that it had accumulated were anything to go by. He held out the faded price tag for inspection; Belle gave a satisfied nod and Gold rung it up.

"I'll get this cleaned up and put a new coat of varnish on it, if you'd like," he said. Belle beamed. 

"That would be lovely, thank you. How much extra for that?"

Gold shrugged. "On the house. I'll give you a call when it's ready to collect."

Belle scribbled down her number on a piece of paper and gave it to him, still thanking him profusely as she left the shop. Gold looked down at the scrawled digits and smiled. Of all the unexpected coincidences, this was a very happy one. He was glad that Belle was getting back on her feet after the acrimonious break-up, although a small part of him wondered what had happened to the signed AC/DC poster and the crate of beer after the thoroughly absent Gaston had not received the message to come and pick them up.

X

Belle’s phone was ringing. This was not in and of itself unusual. What was more unusual was the fact that the number was showing with the name _Gaston Temporary_.

To be honest she wasn’t sure why that number was still programmed into her phone. Surely he’d got a new landline phone number by now and wasn’t still living at his mother’s. She supposed that she’d kept it so that she could be forewarned if he ever called again from it. Such as he was doing now.

Belle picked up her phone and wondered whether or not to actually answer the call. Perhaps it would be better to leave it to voicemail; then she could listen to whatever he had to say when she was no longer quite so angry with him for calling her. On the other hand, the chance to yell at him was really very, very tempting. She took a deep breath and put the phone down again, letting it ring on and on until it finally cut out and stopped vibrating. A minute or so later heralded the arrival of a new message, but she left it for half an hour until she felt in a better frame of mind to listen to his no-doubt drunken proclamations of love and wishes to have her back.

When Belle listened to the message, however, that was not at all what she had received.

_“Miss French, this is Mr Gold. Your item is ready for collection, please feel free to come into the shop at any time.”_

Why was Mr Gold calling her from Gaston’s temporary home phone number? Surely this was all some kind of terrible mistake? She picked up the local phone directory that sat next to the phone and scanned through it to find the pawn shop. Sure enough, the digits matched the ones programmed into her phone.

For the briefest of moments, Belle wondered why Gaston was living at the pawn shop. Then her blood ran cold as she realised that the simplest explanation was that she had in fact got the number wrong and Gaston was nowhere near the pawn shop. She cringed as she remembered some of the messages she had left him just after they had split. Messages that he had not received. Messages that Mr Gold, the so-called town terror who had been so nice to her, so accommodating, had definitely received.

 Belle grabbed her phone and her keys and sprinted out of her apartment above the library, racing down the steps and across the road to the shop, sending the doorbell into a frenzy as she rushed in.

Mr Gold looked up from the counter in alarm.

“I must admit, I wasn’t expecting you quite so quickly,” he said, but there was a small smile on his face, her presence was not unwelcome. Belle grimaced; perhaps she would not be quite so welcome once she had said her piece. It had been an impulse running down here to apologise for the messages, and now that she was standing in the shop, she thought that really, it would have been infinitely better simply to have remained silent and pretend that the entire debacle had never happened.

Something in the back of her mind mused with interest that this was the reason why Gaston had not come to get his memorabilia, and she wondered if he would be angry at its fate in the trash before pushing those thoughts to the back of her mind and focussing on the present. Gold had gone into the back to fetch the seahorse model, and she had a few seconds to gather her thoughts. Get the seahorse and get out. No need to mention the phone calls.

He came back through the curtain and held up the model for her appraisal. Belle nodded dumbly, standing in the middle of the shop clenching and unclenching her fists as he took his time wrapping it up in paper to protect its new varnish.

“There we are,” he said. “I hope Miss de la Mer likes her gift.”

Belle had intended to say “I’m sure she will, thank you so much,” before turning around and leaving the shop.

What she said instead, as she took the china from him, was: “I’m so sorry about those phone calls.”

For a very long time there was silence, and a red alarm bell went off in Belle’s mind. What if he hadn’t received the messages after all? What if he thought that she was just mad?

But then he smiled.

“No harm done, Miss French. I will admit, it was something of a shock when you walked in last week and I recognised your voice.” He paused. “The evidence has been safely deleted, I assure you.”

Belle nodded. “Thanks. I don’t know what you must have thought of me, leaving you all these messages.”

“I did gather quite quickly that they were not intended for me,” Gold said with a soft chuckle. “But I’m simply glad that you’re happy now.”

There was earnestness in his dark eyes, and Belle smiled.

Yes. She was definitely happy now.


End file.
